Accounting and Taxation Practices in the Operation of Slavery in Brazil

Although Brazil imported more African slaves than any other country in the Americas, knowledge of Brazil’s accounting and taxation of slave-related transactions is under-developed. Here we explore Portuguese-language documents that show how accounting and taxation were implicated in maintaining slavery in Brazil in the 18th and 19th centuries. We present examples of key documents involving slaves (inventory lists, rental agreements, insurance policies and receipts) and explain how slave-related transactions were recorded and taxed. We enable important comparisons to be drawn with the accounting and taxation of slaves in the US and British West Indies.